


The Ravine

by spikesgirl58



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-14
Updated: 2014-01-14
Packaged: 2018-01-08 17:38:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1135521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spikesgirl58/pseuds/spikesgirl58
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isolated and alone, Illya reflects upon his situation, his future, and his love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ravine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Open Channel D](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Open+Channel+D).



 

The wind continues to make the walls of the cabin shake.  You’d think after this long, I’d be used to it.  Do you ever get used to being left to die?

THRUSH couldn’t get what they wanted from me, but it didn’t keep them from trying.  They tried drugs. They tried physical force.  They even went the mental route, but I told them nothing, well, nothing that was of any good to them.  Shame they didn’t know the difference.

They got what they thought they wanted and dropped me on this god-forsaken mountain.  They thought I would perish in the cold and the snow.  They were wrong.  Heat would have killed me, but I understand snow and cold.

Granted, I thought they had succeeded for a while.  I could barely move when I stumbled into the ravine and found this cabin.  Whoever it belonged to has been elevated to sainthood in my book.  They left behind a well-stocked larder, a well-stocked wood shed and, even better, a first aid kit.

It took me nearly an hour to get the fire started, but once I did, life didn’t look quite as bad.  The first day was nothing more than tending to the fire, eating when I could and sleeping the rest of the time on a broken down couch next to the fireplace.  The second day, I was awake more.  The third and fourth days I felt good enough to move about the cabin and check it out more completely.

That was when I realized just how dire a situation I was in.  There was food and if I was careful, it might last for another few weeks.  There was plenty of snow for water and the wood was holding up.  Yet there were possibly months ahead of me before the weather would settle down enough for me to hike out.

Physically, I was okay or healing, at any rate, but mentally.  Mentally, there was a problem, Houston.  I didn’t know how long I could handle this absolute boredom.  I never knew what cabin fever meant before now.  I could get a few feet from the cabin, but not much more.  The intense cold and a lack of proper clothing kept me a prisoner here as surely as THRUSH had held me.

The strange part was that I was frequently seen as a loner, even shunning people.  This isn’t the case, but you can’t swerve some people from their preconceived impressions.  It was simply the way I was raised.  You had to be careful as the KGB very often hid behind a lovely and charming smile.  I thought I would cope better than this, but choosing to be alone and being forced to be alone are two very different things.  I would have happily sacrificed a finger or toe for a book.

“I wonder what Napoleon is doing,” I said aloud.  I’d taking to talking to myself just to keep from going crazy.  There was a potholder with a big smiling flower on it.  At first, I scoffed and made fun of it.  Who’d ever seen a face on a flower?  A week later, I started talking to it.  Now Posey was my companion – silent but steady.   I talked to her in English, French, Russian, or whatever language is on the tip of my tongue, just to keep up on my language skills.  “I wonder if he’s in New York now.  If he is he’s probably wining and dining some lovely woman.”

I reached up and touched my face.  I was sporting a beard now.  It kept my neck warm and I thought it made me look rather dashing.  Plus there were no razors, so shaving wasn’t really an option.  Posey had no opinion one way or the other.  You have to admire that in potholders.

At first, I’d tried marking time, but the days were muddled first from when THRUSH was holding me and then, from my own recovery.  Day and night, it didn’t matter much.  Now, I just looked to the horizon for the first change.  It would be my cue to begin preparing myself for the ordeal of hiking out of this place.

I wonder how long he looked for me. I had a hunch it wasn’t long.  I had been a terrible partner, always stealing his thunder, making him look bad in front of Waverly.  He repaid me by stealing away all the women.  “Oh, Posey, all that time and he never knew. Or if he did, he never cared enough to show or do anything.  He could have the women.  All I wanted was him.”

The wind made the cabin shudder and I narrowed my eyes, listening to the wails of what seemed a dozen banshees.  Still, the cabin stood strong against the elements as it had for a long time.  Whoever constructed this had known what they were doing.  If I ever got out of here, I would have to make amends to them for their unwitting generosity.

I shudder as a chill ran down my spine.  If I ever got out of here.

“You’d like him,” I said to my cheerful but silent companion.  “Napoleon is something else.  He is kind, determined, brave, everything I’m not.  I remember once he took out an entire satrap of THRUSH agents, all by himself, just because they’d insulted Mr. Waverly.”  I stopped and sighed.  “And he’s handsome.  He has the sort of eyes that you can get lost in and never want to leave.”

I got up to ease another log on the fire and watched it until it caught.  “God, how I miss him.  I’d do anything just to talk to him again.”

“Then turn around.”

The sound of another voice almost made me vomit from surprise.  I spun and Napoleon was standing there, tired and gaunt, sporting a beard of his own.

“Na- Napoleon?”

“You’re a hard man to find.”  He hooked a finger over his shoulder at the door leading to the wood shed.  “I let myself in the back door.  I wanted to… assess… the situation before I said anything.”

“How long?”

“Tell me again about my eyes.” The smile was wide and loving.  It shot to the depths of my soul.  And I knew I was saved.  And lost all over again.

 

 


End file.
